The prior art is well documented with examples of conveyor cleaning and wiping devices. These include numerous types of scraper and cleaner devices such as which are utilized with smooth belt surfaces of the conveyor. A first example of this is the two piece scraper blade of Kolodziej, U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,133. Additional examples include the elongated wiping arm of Pott, U.S. Pat. No. 3,913,728, the self-cleaning support roller of Paulson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,992, the rotatable cleaning rollers of Pine U.S. Pat. No. 4,840,267, the self cleaning conveyor roller of Tonissen U.S. Pat. No. 4,913,279.
As opposed to smooths surface continuous belt conveyors, other types of cleaning mechanisms are known for cleaning the grates or bars of a conveyor, such as applied to a vibrating bark, sawdust and material conveyors. An examples of this is the vibrating conveyor bar cleaning system of Tuman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,116,326, and which includes a plurality of oscillating teeth in contact with an underside of the grate or bar network in a raking action such that the teeth change direction automatically at each end of travel.